Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn Reveals Four Simple Rules to Not Get Shot in Milwaukee

A lot of people are talking about Police Chief Ed Flynn's remarks at the Ceasefire Sabbath Breakfast Thursday in Milwaukee.

During a detailed and lengthy presentation about crime statistics and community outreach, Chief Flynn offered what he called four simple rules for not getting shot.

The first two were simple; don't belong to a gang and don't be a drug dealer.

"The third rule of thumb is don't illegally carry a gun," continued Chief Flynn. "And the fourth one is if you are in an argument, with a stranger, ask them how often they've been arrested. And if they've been arrested more often than you've been arrested, concede the point."

The audience laughed after the chief's fourth rule.

He went on to stress that many of the shootings in Milwaukee involve arguments between people who are "criminally involved."

Some highlights of the Chief's presentation included:

The homicide rates in Milwaukee for six of the last eight years have been the lowest homicide totals in a quarter of a century.

"There is good news. And then we had last year," Flynn said. "What we don’t know is if we are at the beginning of a trend or was it an abberation".

Milwaukee one of many major cities that saw the increase in homicides last year.

From Louisville to Los Angeles and all the cities had certain things in common including, intergenerational poverty confined to specific neighborhoods.

The Chief acknowledged marginal increases in other crimes concentrated on the same neighborhoods and in the 53206 zip code.

The likelihood of being a victim is also significantly higher in this same zip code.

Citywide non-fatal shooting victims just about the same as last year with a slight increase in 53206 zip code.

Chief Flynn says the analysis proves and decades of research elsewhere supports the concept of police enforcing traffic laws and it had a correlative impact on crime.

He cautioned that you can’t impose a poor people’s tax because of uptick in traffic stops and supported the use of warnings as opposed to actual citations.

"The goal is to use traffic enforcement as vehicle to reduce street violence. It affects the public space."

The chief says at the same time there was a decrease in citizen’s complaints.

"Nobody likes to get stopped by a cop, but everybody likes getting a break.".

What's called "heat map" for violence and fires correlates with unemployment and abandoned houses.

The chief calls it an overlay of problems. "Where social dislocations exist we’re going to have a concentration of violence."

What brought the crowd to the hush is when he confirmed that 87% of people shot in Milwaukee are African American.

MPD seizes proportionally more guns than almost any other guns than U.S.

2,200 firearms last year.

New York City surpasses Milwaukee in gun seizures by 500.

"In this city victims and offenders look like each other and often look like each other," offered the Chief.

He said Center Street will be the main hurdle.

"This corridor has been a driver of crime for three decades in Milwaukee."

Community outreach involved determining who's renting to whom.

The Chief say it's always one house on every block with the family that scares everyone and terrorizes the entire block.

Milwaukee is one of 15 Violence Reduction Cities.

The federal government is willing to help via the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

"Our priorities become the feds' priorities."

Chief Flynn said it's a partnership that’s just started. MPD is still providing crime analysis.

MPD has also reached out to the Downtown Business Improvement District to get the businesses along Center street more involved in policing efforts.

The goal is to make residents and business owners feel less isolated.

Another moment that brought the crowd to silence was the revelation that last Saturday, officers seized five guns along Center Street alone.